CS: Source - Half-Life 2 Preview?

Earlier this week, Valve released the beta of Counter-Strike: Source to those people who had purchased either CS: Condition Zero or to buyers of ATI cards that received the coupons for free copies of Half-Life 2. This beta opening is only temporary until the release of HL2, but it is giving the entire online community a new buzz and hype for the Source engine, which HL2 is obviously built on… Either way, looking at the performance of each of the latest generation of video cards from NVIDIA and ATI can give us a quick preview of what may be to come. But anything can change between now and Half Life 2’s release.

…IF Valve designed this timedemo stress test around what they plan to do in the Half-Life 2 game, then these results are very interesting to see.

On the high-end graphics card battle between the $499 NVIDIA 6800 Ultra and the ATI X800XT PE, the ATI X800XT PE was definitely the winner. Both cards performed very well on the low end resolutions without 4xAA and 8xAF, but once they were turned on and the resolution increased to 1280 or above, the ATI X800XT PE was a jump ahead of the NVIDIA card. In the 1600×1200 test with 4xAA and 8xAF, ATI was 20% faster in average framerate and had a higher minimum framerate as well. If these numbers hold true with final drivers and a shipping version of the game, then the ATI card would most likely give you a better overall gaming experience than the 6800 Ultra.

Moving down to the $399 level cards, the X800 Pro and the NVIDIA 6800 GT, the roles reverse. The NVIDIA 6800 GT is ahead on every single test including faster average frame rates and higher minimum frame rates. The differences between the cards never got the extremes that the 6800U and X800XT battle got to, but it is impressive to see NVIDIA’s card competing at these levels. Also, as we have seen the 6800 GT cards overclocking very well to Ultra speeds and above, that makes it’s performance all the more impressive. Gamers on a budget would do themselves a favor to give this card a bit more attention than they normally would.

CS: Source - Half-Life 2 Preview? @ PC Perspective